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Thursday, 29 January 2015

Just a quick update today about the latest painting project, Relic - Nemesis. Which makes two posts in a row with the word Nemesis in the title.....I feel like that should mean something.......

Like the core game, the busts in Nemesis are fantastic figures, and it's amazing how much easier it is to paint this scale. These figs were a joy to paint, but it's worth noting that when you apply a gloss varnish, you need to highlight a little more. The poor genestealer ended up looking a little flat for that reason. Ah well, you learn as you go.Next up on the painting table is Imperial Assault.

Thursday, 22 January 2015

Disclaimer

Spoilers abound in these posts, if you
haven’t read the books and will get upset by finding out what happens just
stop.

This is also not a recap, if you want a
recap go to Lexicanium.

What The
Black Library says about the book

After the horrors of Istvaan V, Horus
declares outright war against the Imperium. In the shadows of the Emperor's
Palace, powerful figures convene. Their plan is to send a team of assassins to
execute the arch-traitor Horus and end the war for the galaxy of mankind before
it's even begun. But what they cannot know is that another assassin is abroad
already, with his sights firmly set on killing the Emperor.

What the
book is really about?

I can't hear the word "nemesis" without thinking of Bricktop's speech about "Nemesis" from Snatch. And I think it accurate describes what a Nemesis is :)

This book is an interesting one and I
can see it being quite polarizing. I for one, like the ideas on concepts
explored in the book, and I’m a sucker for procedural crime dramas and “dirty
dozen/oceans 11” style team missions.

At its core, it is about an
assassination plot, organized by the master of Assassins (Aka grumpy old man
Malcador the Sigilite), aimed directly at Horus. Now the different assassin
orders have all tried and failed to kill Horus, so the plan is to assemble the
Voltron of assassinations, one member from each of the six clades (orders of
Assassins).

The main story focusses on assembling
this strike team of specialist assassins and then their arrival on the planet
of Dagonet, a world that has special significance to Horus. After arriving on
world, they discover the planet has almost fully gone over to Horus, so decide
to become a G.I Joe strike force and prolong the civil war to the point that
the Sons of Horus turn up, and when they do, they will gank Horus.

It’s actually a pretty good plan, and
it was cool to see the Assassins using their skills as terrorist guerrilla
types. I’ll go into more detail about the different clades later, but I really
like the diversity shown in the team, they are all assassins, but their
training, ideology and methods of operation could not be more different. That
creates dramatic tension and allows the characters to explore their own
foibles.

The secondary plot revolves around a
pair of local coppers on a world near Dragonet investigating a serial killer
with occult trimmings. James Swallow excels at writing horror and visceral
details, and his descriptions of the crime scenes are excellent. As a dude who
watches WAY TOO MANY forensic shows on TV (While I paint, I have documentaries
or old sci-fi on, forensic shows are the most watched), I felt like he did his
research and portrayed the investigation well.

The reveal of who the killer is was a
nice twist, but I can see how that changeover could put off people who have
grown attached to the investigators. In a way, it’s like “from Dusk til Dawn”,
you start off watching a suspenseful crime thriller and then the tone rapidly
changes in one scene. Thankfully from my point of view, it went from crime
show, to Assassination quest, as opposed to slapstick horror in a vampire titty
bar. (Have I mentioned how much that particular changeover disappointed me?)

Anyway, through the secondary plot we
discover the Theoge, an imperial cult and it’s connections to a Rogue Trader
who has a “warrant of trade” signed by the Emperor, complete with his blood.
Our Serial killer, the shapeshifting, demonskin wearing, flesh and brain eating
“Spear” desires nothing more than nomming down this drop of blood in order to
attune to the Emperor, and possibly kill him.

AND IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT THE DROP OF
BLOOD IS ON DAGONET WITH THE ASSASSINS!

So, as our heroes are preparing to gank
Horus, Spear arrives and tries to hunt down the droplet of imperial
deliciousness. The last chapters of the book can only be described as a
cluster-fuck for everyone involved. No one, and I mean NO ONE, gets a happy
ending or achieves what they wanted to.

The Assassins are wiped out, most of
them by Spear himself. Spear gets his drop of “the red-red-Kroovy”, and then
gets ganked by the assassination squad….. eventually….. but only after he eats
some of them. Horus escapes the assassination attempt, but his body double, one
of his Captains, gets killed with a SHIP LANCE, the people of Dagonet die in a
ritual slaughter or bombardment, and finally…. the Assassin masters get
unmasked by Rogal Dorn and told off by the Emperor.

What a mess, but it makes for great
drama.

The Hero-Protagonist
– Eristede Kell & Jenniker Soalm

Ok, look at the list of Assassin
clades……. Of the 4 widely known ones, one has no soul, one has no self-control,
and one has no face. It’s pretty easy to see why they put the Vindicare in
control. He’s calm, professional and meticulous…… or at least hes meant to be.

Eristede is a pro’s pro, but the powers
that be completely scupper him from being professional right from the get go.
They assign him a Venenum (poisoner) Assassin, who just so happens to be his
estranged kid sister.

I totally get why they do this for
dramatic reasons, but the tense relationship constantly undermines his authority
and makes him second guess things. Which is good as all of these Assassin
characters could have ended up as caricatures. And while Eristede isn’t the
deepest character in the world, we get to understand his motivation for becoming
an assassin, the emotional walls he has put up, and the unreconciled issues he
has around his family.

Jenniker on the other hand, is a very different character. I wish they had
focussed a little more on her murdering people, as most of that happens off
screen and it would have been nice to see the capabilities of a Venenum in more
detail. What sets her apart from the other Assassins is that she has faith.
Jenniker is a member of the Imperial Cult, and her actions are similar to
Keeler, in that she becomes one of the first people “called to action” as a
servant of the Emperor as God.

Her story arc is quite simple but
contains interesting character development. She has the competing drivers of mission,
family and faith to deal with, and her decision to follow her Faith turns out
to be the correct choice for the Imperium.

I really liked the family elements to
this story, but adding in something as humanizing as a kid-sister/big-brother
relationship, the writer added something that cannot exist in an astartes
focussed book, Intergender familial ties, and it was nice to see that aspect
explored.

Why are
there humans in my book about super-powered Space Marines Assassins?

Well, there are a few humans in this
story, the cops for one and the resistance on Dagonet for the other. Josef
Sabrat, the main police character has a particularly horrible story arc, and is
final fate is pretty damned gruesome. It’s a bit of a shyamalan plot twist, and
I can see how it would rankle readers who grew attached to him. It’s a little
bit of a pity as the investigation story as developing nicely until we hit “WHAT
A TWIST” territory.

As for the guerrilla’s, we don’t see much of them, but they are adequately
portrayed. Oddly, the most memorable depiction of a human character in the book
is a throw-away character who gets ganked by the Assassins 2 minutes after we
meet him. But in those handful of pages from his perspective, you really
develop a strong dislike for him. I’m talking about Goeda Rufin, the self-important
jackass base commander character, such a dislikeable prat.

MVP – Assassination Voltron

I liked the Assassins, I thought their
interactions were a good mix of dramatic and humorous. While each of them had
to play archetype for their clade, the author explores this in a good way. This
could easily have been a hack job like Battle for the Abyss, but Swallow
decided to give us a little more than cliché here.

Tariel, the Vanus Infocyte was an interesting
addition to the Warhammer universe, as I had not seen anything about the Vanus
Assassins before this book. The idea of an imperial assassin who is a pudding
in close combat was nice. I love his method of operation, hack everything,
steal all knowledge you can, and use it your advantage. I also liked all his
cyber animals and the fact he was a big steaming coward at heart.

Koyne was probably the blandest of the
Assassins, but as a Callidus, that’s probably not surprising. While the
character was a blank slate for the most part, where the authour excelled was
in viscerally describing the use of polymorphine and the unsettling nature of
having a shapeshifter around.

Iota was another interesting portrayal
of a character. Being a vat born pariah, she could hardly have had a normal
life growing up. What’s great is that her emotional distance and immaturity
leaks through frequently. The discussion about whether a pariah can have a soul
was quite sad in a way, and her death was one of the more horrific in the
books.

And finally, the main man, the Garrantine. I love this guy, a single minded
rage-killer who spends his whole time on the edge of a murderous frenzy. That
sounds like a terribly boring character, but Swallow does a fine job of giving
him some great “gallows humour” moments.

Worst
Character – Spear

You’re gonna have to indulge me here
because I like a lot of Spear. I think the way he’s described is great, I think
his action scenes are great, and the horror scenes he’s involved with are
great.

I guess I just don’t get why he’s the way he is. It’s a little bit of “he was
born bad, so he’s bad” and the little hand-wave around Erebus torturing him
didn’t come close to explaining his motivations. I dunno, might just be me but
I found the character interesting to read about, but I didn’t “get him”.

But I think the issue is that his
motivations are not his own. He’s a powerful entity, cut lose to complete a
mission, but his motivations and goals are Erebus’s. And that robbed the
character of his agency for me, which was something that left the character a
bit flat.

Get to know
your Legion – The Officio Assassinorum

Silly masks and parlour games…..
honestly, the scenes with the Assassin bosses felt like a really bad Live-roleplaying
game where everyone is playing an archetype. Eversor is angry…… GRRRRR.

However, the actual assassins make up
for the tomfoolery on Terra. I did cringe a little when everyone got given
their “new toys”: which just happened to be the standard kits for those
characters in 40k. I guess we were supposed to be awed with

BEHOLD…… EXITUS…….

But I was simply…… well yeah, he’s a vindicare,
of course he has an Exitus rifle. Bet the Callidus gets a neural shredder as
well….. oh yeah, there it is.

Get to know your Primarch – Rogal Dorn

Dorn is a big boring goon in this book
and I kinda like Dorn. To me, Dorn is one of the saner Primarchs. Sure, he occasionally
tortures himself, and he’s pretty inflexible at times, but deep down he’s a
soldier, he knows who is boss is, and he knows he is bred to fight. In a lot of
ways, he’s like Stannis Baratheon from AGOT in that he’s not a loveable person,
but he is in the right and will not give up on that fact.

But I still found him a little bland in this book, or at least I did at the start.
Once his motivations were explained, that attempting to kill Horus would just
result in an escalation of civilian casualties and carnage, I appreciated him
more. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Dorn, especially as the war darkens
and the Emperor gets more isolated.

I want to see his thoughts when he
realizes he’s pretty much alone defending Terra, and that the Emperor himself
isn’t do much to aid the situation. I also expect the interactions between
Sanguinius, the Khan and him to be interesting as well.

Why the
Emperor is a giant douche

Chalk up another book for the Emperor
not being that bad. Sure, he’s turned a blind eye to countless assassinations
before, but when they finally overstep by attacking Horus he does what any
senior manager in a modern business would do…….

He conducts a governance review! Yep,
so instead of having the Assassin Clade leadership in the shadows he makes them
a part of the government and gives them an oversight committee. It’s a
practical decision and not at all douchey!

Moustache
twirling evil-bastard award –Erebus

Erebus……. Would we even have a Horus Heresy without
this guy….. or any stories for that matter. I get it, he’s the guy that kicked
this whole thing off, but here’s something I want to emphasise.

Not all plots have to involve him, he’s
already been super-successful evil guy, he’s doesn’t have to be behind
EVERYTHING. I’d really have preferred if Spear had his own motivations as I mentioned
earlier.

Heck, Spearcould have been deployed by
the Alpha Legion or Xenos, He may have been the result of an experiment by the
Mechanicum or Thousand Sons. He could have been 100% self-motivated by the idea
of achieving apotheosis by consuming the Emperor.

Any of these ideas may have been better than having the villain being Erebus……
again.

Quirky
reveals and other coolness

Malcador the sigilite, right hand of
the Emperor, is also the master of assassins. I don’t know about anyone else,
but Malcador is a character I am very suspicious of. We don’t really know a lot
about him and he seems to have a bucket load of power.

Luc Sidrae, Captain of the 13th
company of the Sons of Horus gets killed in this book. And it’s alluded to that
Horus knew an attack was coming and knowingly sacrificed him. I hope more about
this is revealed later, and I suspect it will be. (Don’t tell me the details if
it has been, I’m still only up to this book)

Battle for the Abyss gets mentioned as
Koyne is in the process of assassinating one of the guys behind the
construction of the furious abyss. As bad as that book is, I like tie ins like
this that make the stories more interconnected. It makes the setting feel more
real and organically changing.

The writing
– technical review and evaluation

James Swallow is a good writer, he
excels at describing horror and the warp, and is arguably the best writer in
the collection for doing a horror story. He also has some flashes of brilliance
with characters, but overall, he’s a little inconsistent.

He is solidly in the 2nd tier
of HH writers behind Abnett and ADB. While he lacks some of the brilliance of
those two, he can still write very well and I will always pick up one of his
books thinking it should be reasonably good.

This book gets a“You can skip this one, but it’s still
a good read”rating.

Thursday, 15 January 2015

IT'S DONE, I PAINTED THEM ALL.......... BWAHAHAHAAHAHA. Ok, i still need Dynamo and Sturgis, and there are some mercs to go, but the core army is well and truly done and dusted.And now, a massive gallery of pics to celebrate.

Wednesday, 14 January 2015

That's it, I'm done painting Cygnar. The final group shots will be up in the next few days. The last model painted was thunderhead, and I enjoyed doing him a little differently than the rest of the army.

I made my own metallic blue by mixing up some paints, and decided to paint him in a style inspired by this awesome forge world dreadnought. I also reposed his hand and made and "energy ball" for him to be summoning to throw. I never liked the flat hand facing down, and thought I should do something different with it. Anyways, Cygnar COMPLETE. Photos coming soon. Damn that's a good feeling.

Monday, 5 January 2015

Disclaimer

Spoilers abound in these posts, if you
haven’t read the books and will get upset by finding out what happens just
stop.

This is also not a recap, if you want a
recap go to Lexicanium.

What The
Black Library says about the book

Censured at the Council of Nikea for his
flagrant use of sorcery, Magnus the Red and his Thousand Sons Legion retreat to
their homeworld of Prospero to continue their use of the arcane arts in secret.
But when the ill-fated primarch foresees the treachery of Warmaster Horus and
warns the Emperor with the very powers he was forbidden to use, the Master of
Mankind dispatches fellow primarch Leman Russ to attack Prospero itself. But
Magnus has seen more than the betrayal of Horus and the witnessed revelations will
change the fate of his fallen Legion, and its primarch, forever.

What the
book is really about?

Damn, these book blurbs really like to
give away the plot don’t they?

Ok, a lot happens in this book and some
of it takes too long to develop, while other bits are rushed.

We start on the planet of Aghoru, a hot
planet that has human inhabitants who wear masks all the time, and sort of
worship a giant elder monument thingy that houses a GREAT EVIL. And for the
first 3rd of the book, we get slowly introduced to the characters,
the legion, the Space Wolves and Magnus.

Long story short, Space wolves turn up
to demand Magnus join Russ in the crusade, Magnus wants to explore the temple,
chaos awakes, mayhem eschews, and the Space Wolves see the Thousand sons cut
loose with PSIPOWERZ when they think Magnus has fallen.

It’s a bit slowly paced to start and it took me a while to get into it. By the
end of the Aghoru story arc I was feeling very “meh” about the book. But it
picks up a lot after the initial arc, which really could have been tightened up
a bit.

Part two of the book has the Thousand
Sons, Space Wolves and Word Bearers engaged in a total war of extermination
against an avian humanoid species. There’s some good action in here and a great
stand-off between Primarchs.

The middle of the book is the double
act of Emperor as stage performer. First, the victory procession at Ullanor,
and then the Trial of Magnus at Nikea. I wish the Trial was a little more
involved, Magnus got some great lines but it was all a bit clipped. I think 40
pages of padding from Aghoru could have been ripped out and replaced with more
coverage of one of the seminal events of the Heresy.

It’s almost as though McNeill panicked
a little at having to write a courtroom drama, so he had the protagonist
collapse during the trial so he could hand wave it. A little disappointed at
that, but I more than forgave him for what followed.

The battle of Prospero was awesome and
epic, it swung back and forth, different characters had major impacts on the
proceedings and it was a great read. It had everything an over the top battle
in the Heresy needs; psychically controlled titans, magics aplenty, the Wulfen,
two Primarchs going at it, custodes, sisters, guardsmen, hand to hand, orbital
bombardments, the whole nine freaking yards.

But despite the great action scenes at
the end, the single best part of this book is that it explains who the Thousand
Sons are, What they believe, and why they fell. And it tells the story in a way
that makes the Thousand Sons believable and real.

The Hero-Protagonist
- Ahriman

Well Holy cow.

They finally made an established chaos
character in the 40k universe something other than a moustache twirling villain
(Tython, Bile) or a mindless buffoon (Abaddon, Lucius, Ben counters book 3
Kharn).

Ahriman is the classic “Warrior-scholar”
type. He fights when he needs to and is an instrument of war, but deep down, he’d
probably rather be reading books and indulging in his hobby of viticulture.

I really liked his interactions with
Wyrdmake, the rune priest of the Space Wolves. It was nice for once to see a traitor
legion on the receiving end of a personal betrayal. What starts as a friendly exchange
of ideas between legions ends in massive betrayal of trust and revenge. You
also feel that Ahriman is quite justified in his final acts against Wyrdmake as
well.

The other things I found appealing
about Ahriman was his interaction with the remembrancer Lumeul, his personal
story about the flesh change and his twin, and his insecurities about his
power. Ahriman felt flawed and….. human really. A lot of characters in this
universe come across as caricatures and supermen, but for all of Ahriman’s
baddassery, he really is just a guy committed to his legion and paranoid that
he will become a monster. I’m quite interested to read more about him after
this.

Why are
their humans in my book about super-powered Space Marines?

Again, the Remembrancers are great
human characters and all four of them are solid, interesting characters. It’s
also nice to see lesser psykers and how normal people deal with psychic
phenomenon in the 30k universe.

Lumuel, while clearly riffing on
Karkasy from book one, is an engaging fellow. His personal growth in the story
is immense, and he goes from a lazy gadfly to become a quite heroic character
towards the end.

Camille and Kallista both go through
horrible story arcs that show the dangers of psychic powers, and poor
Kallimakus is the victim of horrific abuse and the hands of Magnus.

These four characters tell a very
personal story of horror, and there are some truly creepy, tense and sad
moments in their story. The exchange between Lumeul and Ahriman over Kallista’s
fate at the end truly shows how far Lumeul has come, and how far Ahriman will go.
It’s a great part of the book.

There are a lot of questions remaining
for these characters and I hope they pop up again.

MVP – Phosis T’Kar

This may seem like a strange choice,
but let me explain. I really liked the different captains within the Thousand
Sons and their various fates. Ulthizaar the telepath had some great character
exchanges with Ahriman, and his final fate was sad. Khalophis literally goes
out in a blaze of glory while being a colossal engine of destruction; Maat
pulls through the battle but is a shell of what he was at the end.

All of the captains have a bit of
character, except Auramagma, who’s mostly defined through the fact that Ahriman
doesn’t like him.

But Phosis T’kar wins the MVP for the single
best death scene in the series so far. It’s a poignant moment that sums up
everything about the Thousand Sons and their fall. It’s the final moment of
realization that all of the power they have accumulated is for nothing, and all
it has done is cost them their souls.

Worst
Character – Yatiri

Ok, most of the characters in the book
are alright, some are pretty good even. However, I’m giving this award to
Yatiri as representative of a boring race of primitives who took up WAY too
much of the book.

The thing that annoyed me most about
them is the mask idea. Oh wow, a society that hides behind masks and never
takes them off. That might be cool if they hadn’t done the exact same thing only
a few books earlier, on Sarosh with Descent of Angels.

185 pages…… should have been a lot
less.

Get to know
your Legion – The Thousand sons

I think this is the high point of the
book. McNeill took a tricky legion and made them interesting, unique and
somewhat believable. Sure, he relied on WAY too many things to do with the
number nine, but all in all, the Legion is well described and well detailed.

You have the planet of Prospero, and its
past is explained in detailed. You also have the five cults of the legion
spelled out and their origin story. I like that the psykers are specialized
into traditions, biokenesis, telepathy, augury, telekenetics and pyromaniacs.
It creates a nice feel and stops everyone being “just another psyker”.

It also creates rivalries and
competition within the Legion, and marks out individual characters by their
power displays. I think the cults were a great inclusion, and anyone doing a
Thousand Sons army would profit from including them conceptually in unit
design.

I also really like how the Thousand
Sons gene flaw was handled. Lets face it, many Legions have some horrible
downsides, the Red-Thirst, Becoming Wolfen, Rages, being a boring boring person
(Sorry Ultramarine fans, but it’s true, that’s their geneflaw…. Deal with it!).

But none of them are quite as horrific
as the flesh change. It’s described in great detail, and you can feel the fear across
the Legion at the prospect of it. It’s yet another thing that drives the
Thousand Sons to know everything.

I also like the mental discipline of the enumerations, even if I think it was a
little overused. Despite occasionally going hogwild with the psychic powers,
they are a discipline Legion, which provides nice contrast to the Space Wolves.

Oh, and I love that the Thousand Sons casually
use warp entities and their power without realizing exactly what they are
doing. These guys were so very very doomed with that attitude.

PS, when they finally get around to
making legion models, they will be awesome, but perhaps not as awesome as these.

Get to know your Primarch – Magnus the
Red.

Well he’s no 21st Century Schizoid
man, that’s for sure. An obscure reference to say the least, but I couldn’t
help but listen to “the court of the Crimson King” by progressive rock Legends
King Crimson while typing this review, as every time they called him the
Crimson King that track would pop into my head.

Magnus is done quite well. He swings
between cocksure arrogance and pragmatic level-headedness but never goes into
the caricature level. His fall is well telegraphed, but it’s a classic story,
the story of Icarus or the cliché that “the road to ruin starts with good
intentions”.

Magnus means well, but he’s fucked from
day one. Seriously, I don’t know what Magnus could have done to escape his
fate, he has amazing psychic powers, and his body is essentially a visage. So
why expect him to sit and behave like a normal boy.

Faced with his legions flaw, he dooms
himself to save them. And then, when he finds out about the heresy he tries to
save the day with his forbidden powers, but in the process, muffs everything up.

But what else would he have done? Sat
down and let the heresy happen? Not warned the Emperor? Magnus gets boxed in
and his loyalty destroys him. Poor bastard.

Why the
Emperor is a giant douche

This book is a big one for the Emperor
acting on maximum nozzle.

Magnus was doomed with a dad like this.
Magnus was a kid with special needs and needed a lot more parenting than the
others. Anyone who can casually throw off their skin and fly around the warp
needs some good solid parenting about what is in the warp.

And when Magnus solved the gene-flaw in
the Thousand Sons, did the Emperor not think “how the heck did he do that,
perhaps I will press him for answers”.

Then he punishes Magnus at Nikea for being himself.

And finally, although it’s not covered
in this book in great detail, he builds a life support astropathic prison for
Magnus to be entombed in…….. That golden throne wasn’t built for the Emperor
you know. Someone with massive psychic powers was going to be imprisoned for
all time in there, and you can bet the Emperor had Magnus lined up for the gig.

Moustache
twirling evil-bastard award – Mortarion

Mortarion is pretty painfully written
in this, and I get that it’s from the perspective of the Thousand Sons. But he
just comes across as a giant ham who wants to sneakily smack down Magnus.

Quirky
reveals and other coolness

Well, this book has a few of them, so
time to add in a new category for the reviews.

One – The name “a thousand sons” and
how they were called that before they shrank to a Thousand. The Emperor knew
what was coming? So did that mean he knew Magnus would barter his soul to save
them?

Two – There are no wolves on Fenris.
This whole little story piece was wonderfully creepy, and painted the Space
Wolves as being something far more sinister and dark than simple tribal
beserkers.

Three- Leman Russ and the façade. At
one point Ahriman sees through Leman Russ’s façade and see that it’s mostly for
show. Again, this makes the Space Wolves a lot darker and sinister than their
normal portrayal and I loved it. Russ plays the mindless beserker, but is so
much more.

Four – It’s all part of a master plan.
The whole Space Wolves – Thousand Sons conflict is set off by pro-heresy
factions who want to take out two of the most formidable loyal legions. It’s
pretty clever really.

The writing
– technical review and evaluation

At 558 pages, this is a solid sized
book and it covers a lot of ground. I’m not gonna lie, I think this is Graham
McNeill’s best work and it’s a great contribution to the Horus Heresy. This is
a book that could easily have been messed up, and a Legion that could have
turned out terribly in the story. And while the book has its flaws, it’s a
solid read.

Sunday, 4 January 2015

I Like light jacks, I like them a lot in fact. I like them so much I own a literal swarm of light jacks.

What's weirder is I use them a lot as well. I will rarely field an army that doesn't have at least one Light warjack. And occasionally, i'll field a lot more than that. Now, i've only just finished painting 3 chargers, 2 sentinels, 2 fireflys, i hunter and 1 minuteman. So i haven't got to go completely crazy with them yet. The key word is yet. At my next tournament I will be running a list with 3 sentinels, 4 chargers and 2 minutemen. It should be hilarious. Oh yeah, that list also has 20 focus per turn to spend. So silly.

Now that's a tier list, but i think they have a place in almost any list. Light jacks seem to be overlooked a fair bit because of the obsession people have for running jacks on full focus. A lot of these jacks can get value for their points with 0-1 focus per turn. A minuteman only needs 1 focus to leap per turn, a hunter 1 to boost damage if standing still (rat 9), a sentinel should never really need focus, a grenadier can fire 3 shots a turn with zero focus and a charger gets a double boosted power 12 for one focus. Best of all, they cost 4-6 points and you can "focus them up" if the situation warrants it. Now that's with a standard caster. There are other examples that make Cygnar lights insanely good. Here's a few I use.

Kraye: How about 3 sentinels + guided fire? Minutemen with full tilt who can flak field important solos. Stand and fire Rat 9 boosted shot hunters who can move after shooting. Kraye loves lights.

Nemo2: Assign 3 focus to each jack? 4 Chargers, and that's a whomping 8 pow 12 double boosted shots, with energizer and movement, that's 21" of shooting threat. PEW PEW!Stryker3: Most people seem obsessed with the high-power alpha strike to take down super tough units. I like the idea that even a small utility jack like a firefly can provide support for stormcallers, and then get a pow 13+4 dice, auto hitting, threat range 11" charge with reach. Anyway, light jacks, love em. Don't leave home without them. Oh, and you might notice the alternate paint schemes for the jacks below. I wanted to mix up painting so many light jacks at once, and I also wanted to create visually distinct "battlegroups", so i can assign a sentinel and a charger to a junior (or 4)

Thursday, 1 January 2015

Welcome to the latest painting update on my pledge to finish "ALL THE CYGNAR" by the end of Jan 2015. First up are the Silverline Stormguard, a unit only available directly from Privateer Press. Which, if you live in New Zealand, means they are a pain in the ass to get a hold of in an affordable way.Fortunately for me, one of my friends went to Warmachine weekend, heck, he even ended up on the muse on minis podcast, so i asked him to pick them up for me. Good job that man. This is the first unit I have airbrushed most of the painting on. I used black, then a dark metal and finally a silver in the manner described in more detail here.

After the silver base was done, i used the dark blue glaze from Games Workshop and gently glazed the metal to give it this silver-metallic look. Overall, i like it. An entire silver unit would be too much for me in a blue army, but the metallic blue/silver keeps army coherency, while marking the silverlines as being very different from the dark blue traditional Stormguard. Next up is Nemo3, who I hated painting. I find Nemo3 the most disappointing model and concept in the Cygnar warcasters. The old guy has looked virtually the same in all 3 incarnations, and Nemo3, while quite powerful, lends himself to boring play.

I wanted Nemo3 to be an old man in a gundam suit of electrical power armour. I wanted something different, as it stands Nemo3 is pretty similar to his old form. He just doesn't grab me. And finally, Caine1. A caster I haven't used yet, but one who seems to have few fans. Caine1 seems to suffer from "1st edition, core set blues". He's very basic, has very simple effects and is ok. But he lacks the "OMG THATS AWESOME" that a lot of later casters have. I think deadeye, snipe and blur make for solid spells, and teleport is always handy. But compared to Caine2, I see a lot of short falls.

Which is sad, because i think their should be closer parity in casters than their is. Caine is a victim of the Apotheosis book, which made EPIC versions of the first 3 casters. And for the most part, the EPIC's were just that.... better versions. I hope they tweak Caine1 and Stryker1 when they do a 3rd edition to make them more interesting. Next up, loads of light jacks.....